


WWPCD?

by stepantrofimovic



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Canon Temporary Character Death, Inspired By Tumblr, Other, Phil Coulson is everyone's role model, SHIELD-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-23
Updated: 2016-02-23
Packaged: 2018-05-22 19:18:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6091308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stepantrofimovic/pseuds/stepantrofimovic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phil Coulson's legacy is powerful within SHIELD, even though, technically, no agent below Level 6 knows that he's dead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	WWPCD?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CallToMuster](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CallToMuster/gifts).



> This was, once again, inspired by [this post](http://calltomuster.tumblr.com/post/138023382957/okay-guys-i-just-realized-something) by CallToMuster on Tumblr. I don't think that's exactly what she had in mind, but, well.

**1\. Clint Barton**

Clint should never have accepted Sitwell’s invitation to come speak at the Academy. It doesn’t matter that he and Phil did that every year when Phil was – well. When there still _was_ a Phil. It doesn’t matter that Sitwell had been asking for weeks before Clint finally accepted. Neither does it matter how many times Clint’s therapist has told him that he’s ready for this, that if he has to face his fellow SHIELD agents again after what happened on the Helicarrier, the Academy, where most people don’t have a clearance level high enough to know the details about Loki’s attack, is the perfect place to start.

It doesn’t matter. Clint is not ready for this.

And yet, he’s somehow got through the morning just fine, if by “just fine” one means “without any visible signs of a nervous breakdown” – he managed to give a good approximation of a speech to Sitwell’s class of first-years without letting his voice break even once (ah, the perks of being a spy and, perhaps most importantly, a seasoned ex-performer), and he smiled through most of the question time in a way that would have made Natasha (or Stark) proud. Most of the questions were harmless anyway – he’s faced way worse in the past few months than a sheepish-looking sixteen-year-old asking about SHIELD’s policy on mind-control threats.

No, what Clint definitely wasn’t prepared for is the bunch of curious-but-deferential young trainees who surround him as soon as the lesson ends – every one of them, apparently, armed with a different question about Phil Coulson.

“Agent Barton! You were a part of Strike Team Delta before you joined the Avengers, right? Is it true that Agent Coulson had been your handler for more than six years?” (He nods at that, something that Natasha would never have done, but he’s tired and his guard is down and he _knew_ he wasn’t ready for this, goddammit.)

“And what about him, sir? Did he really take out ten armed opponents with a bag of flour once?”

“Two,” Clint can’t help but smile, even though it hurts. “It was two, not ten.” He doesn’t add, _I was sleeping in the car while he did that_ , but it doesn’t make the memory of Phil coming back from the small shop with his tie just the littlest bit askew and two packs of mini-donuts in his hand any less vivid.

It’s a strange feeling, this bittersweet joy of talking about a person he loved so much mixed with the still raw pain of Phil’s death.

“And the thing with the potted plant? That one’s true, right? Agent Sitwell told us about that one.”

“It was a cactus, actually, and –” The potted plant rumor had been around for years, and Clint had always suspected Sitwell of having a part in it. But telling the first-year recruits, especially now, is definitely taking it a bit too far.

“What’s the best thing about working with Agent Coulson? Is he really as good a handler as the instructors tell us?”

_Okay, wait, say that again?_

“And is he really such a great field agent? My uncle says he started out as an analyst. I didn’t even know you could go from data analysis to working in the field. That’s what I’m planning to do myself, by the way.”

“What’s the Avengers’ relationship with Coul- with Agent Coulson? I heard he was going to be your liaison, but some people don’t believe it.”

 _Breathe, Barton, breathe._ He’s unconsciously backed up against the wall, but the gaggle of people around him just seems to grow. Or maybe that’s just another effect of the panic skirting at the corners of his mind.

“Did he really teach Improvised Weaponry to the Black Widow?” (“Don’t be an idiot, Arisaka, it’s not as if the Black Widow ever went to the Academy.” “But Agent Olenskaya…”)

“Is it true that he once took down an AIM base with a paperclip?”

“Does Director Fury really call him his ‘one good eye’? Oh, shit, I’m going to get expelled for this, aren’t I?”

The fact that Clint has stopped answering their questions doesn’t seem to bother the trainees at all. For his part, all he can hear is _is Agent Coulson this_ , _does Agent Coulson that_ , _can Agent Coulson…_

All of it in the present tense.

“I think Agent Barton would like to be left alone now, young ones.” Sitwell has somehow managed to wedge himself between Clint and the group of over-excited trainees, despite the gap being non-existent up to a few seconds ago. A chorus of “sorry!” and “thank you, Agent Barton, sir!” follows as the students scatter down the hall.

The first thing Clint manages to spit out as soon as he and Jasper are finally left alone is, “Phil Coulson is dead.”

“Yes,” Jasper agrees, mildly. His deadpan could sometimes rival Coulson’s on his best days, and since New York, well, he has no competitors.

“Your students” – Clint is regaining his footing by now, years of training helping him as usual – “didn’t seem terribly convinced of that.”

“All information about Agent Coulson’s death is restricted to Clearance Level 6 or higher,” Sitwell intones, ever the embodiment of SHIELD regulations.

“It’s… _what?_ ” Never mind his training, this isn’t something Clint can hear and be supposed to keep a straight face. “This was Fury’s idea, wasn’t it?”

“Maybe. What matters is that anyone below Level 6 thinks that Agent Coulson is alive. Well, those who know of his existence, at least.”

Clint grimaces. “He did seem to have quite a reputation.”

“True. And would you rather we undermine the younger agents’ outlook on SHIELD by telling them that their role model is dead?” Sitwell’s expression is earnest, but his voice sounds oddly detached. “They look up to him, Barton. Some of them chose field training over an easier curriculum in Communications because of him. You might even say it’s a part of his legacy. And I’m sure not going to be the one who destroys all that.”

“Of course,” Clint forces back, his voice just the littlest bit choked. “I understand.” As he turns away from Sitwell and starts walking down the hall, however, he can’t help but add a last line over his shoulder. “Plus, after all, Coulson was basically killed by friendly fire. And Fury hates bad press.”

He doesn’t get the satisfaction of watching Jasper’s mild facade fall.

***

**2\. Maria Hill**

Deputy Director Hill has supervised enough promotions from Level 5 to Level 6 that she knows what to expect by now. This, of course, does not make it any easier.

Sometimes, she wonders if the way she feels every time she watches another agent’s face fall when they read the Level 6 briefing package means that she isn’t cut out for her role in SHIELD, after all. When this happens, she thinks of Coulson, and of the many times he had to remind her that Fury’s outlook on life wasn’t the only way to be good at what they did. It still helps, a little.

She tries not to think about Coulson as a friend too much lately, though.

Anyway, yes, they added the information to the briefing package for newly-appointed Level 6 agents. Believe it or not, it was a precautionary measure. Of the first three agents who got promoted to Level 6, and as such received the news about Agent Coulson’s death without adequate preparation, one had caused a proper scene by crying in the mess hall (guess what, Hill had _not_ been the SO who vetted that one for promotion), one had almost blown up an entire facility when he got startled and dropped experimental equipment from R &D, and the last one had actually gone and handed in her notice less than two hours after Hill had casually mentioned the fact that Coulson was dead. (That had caused her the most problems, actually – handling the resignation of a higher-level agent was always a pain in the ass.)

So they’d gone and printed a new briefing package, which along with the updated and expanded intel on all SHIELD bases, protocols, and contacts (both on Earth and elsewhere) now contains a neat little box with the news that Agent Phil Coulson, Level 8, has been killed in action before the Battle of New York, and that any information about his death is not to be disclosed to anyone without proper clearance. Like many other things, having it down in print helps. Makes it official.

Mostly, it makes people realize that while their little hero complex towards Agent Coulson might be a nice thing, it still isn’t supposed to interfere with their duties at SHIELD.

(That, right there, is a sentence that Hill might have doubted was true about herself – at least until Fury told her about TAHITI. Now, she knows that her loyalty to SHIELD trumps her friendship for Coulson. Among the things she’s learned from that particular experience, at least this one might turn out to be useful.)

Still, no amount of fine print on a briefing package is going to change the fact that seeing the disappointment and, well, grief on an agent’s face when they read about Coulson’s death is painful, and it’s not just because Hill knows that that part of the file isn’t, to put it mildly, exactly up to date.

An agent’s promotion from Level 6 to Level 7, on the other hand, is something that Hill doesn’t get to witness that often. Which explains why she was looking forward to her meeting with Specialist Agent Ward today so much, she guesses. That, and the fact that this time, the information on the briefing package will be different.

As she welcomes Agent Ward into her office and lets him make himself comfortable, she can’t help but smile a little to herself.

When Ward asks why they pulled him out from the Paris mission, Hill knows that the time for small talk is over. A pity, really – she was still savoring the moment.

“That, you’ll have to ask Agent Coulson.”

Ward’s clearly fake smile at that remark puts another plus in Hill’s mental tally of his qualities. (Yes, she might have signed the paperwork for his promotion, but this doesn’t mean she’s going to stop assessing him anytime soon.) “Yeah,” he answers, visibly annoyed. “I’m Clearance Level 6. I know that Agent Coulson was killed in action before the Battle of New York. Got the full report.” _Oh, so you’re one of those who asked for the full report_ , Hill thinks.

“Welcome to Level 7,” a voice says from behind her, and damn, it looks like she’s going to have to lecture Coulson about unnecessary dramatics. _Again._ They didn’t put together a whole new briefing package about this just for the man himself to come stepping out of dimly-lit corners, for God’s sake.

“Sorry,” Coulson says, “That corner was very dark. I couldn’t help myself. I think there's a bulb out” – and Hill knows he’s being cheeky, of course, but she can’t contain her smile all the same.

***

**3\. Melinda May**

At Level 6, Agent Melinda May might just be the highest-ranking agent in SHIELD HR. Scratch that, she knows she is the highest-ranking agent. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t times when she’d rather do without the knowledge that comes from her clearance level.

Not that, if given that chance, she’d ever have chosen to be lied to about Phil Coulson’s death. She might be a coward, hiding in a cubicle since Bahrain and Andrew and everything that came with that, but she could never do that to Phil. Nor to Clint, who came looking for her a week after New York with the eyes of a man who couldn’t sleep at night and no words other than “it’s my fault.”

She’d punched him. He’d taken the hit without even flinching. Then she’d taken him home, where they’d spent the evening swapping stories and drinking cheap whiskey that would have made Coulson deeply disappointed in them.

Then May had gone back to her cubicle and her paperwork. To hiding.

No, she’d never wish not to know what happened. But it would be a little better, she thinks, if on days like this, when even breathing in a world where Phil Coulson doesn’t exist feels hard, she weren’t stuck in an office with three other agents whose clearance is below Level 4, and no one to know why sometimes she doesn’t want to talk to anyone.

Well, she doesn’t want to talk to anyone most of the time, to be honest, but people have learned not to say anything about that if they value their peace of mind.

The worst thing about sharing an office, of course, is that even on days when she doesn’t say a word to anyone, there’s still nothing to stop her colleagues from talking. Case in point, the boy in the cubicle next to her (Level 2, clean-shaven, with a penchant for self-blaming – looks younger than his age, whatever that is, hence “boy”). He’s been muttering complaints about his own paperwork-filing skills for the whole morning, and seriously, Melinda’s going to dunk his face into his coffee if he keeps this up, low self-esteem or not.

“Shit, Shawn, you’re an idiot. Again. It’s H1-74-A6, not 64-A7.” (Okay, given that the first one’s for paychecks and the second one is a witness protection request, maybe this time Shawn has _some_ reason to berate himself. Still doesn’t justify the part where he does that aloud.) “How am I even in this office?” he mutters. Then he straightens up as if he’s about to give himself a pep talk, and that’s it, Melinda’s going to request another transfer, she can’t work with this kind of idiot around. “Come on, Shawn, you’re better than this. Remember, Agent Coulson would never misfile a form.”

The bang from May’s drawer slamming shut is loud enough to shut up the entire office. She stalks out of the door without sparing a glance for anyone, even though she can feel Shawn’s terrified eyes on her.

***

Her transfer request comes back with a refusal stamp and a note from Director Fury to come see him in his office at her earliest convenience.

“Agent May,” he greets her. “I’m glad you came. I need to tell you something about Project TAHITI.”

(When she gets back to the office the next day, Shawn has put up a new poster on one of his cubicle’s walls. On it, Melinda can see a badly blown-up, grainy photo of Phil Coulson holding a manila folder, with the words _YOU CAN BE A PAPERWORK NINJA TOO_ pasted at his feet. In WordArt. She manages not to garrote Shawn over break, but that’s a tough call. Still, his face when Phil himself comes into the office months later to ask her to join his new team repays all of Melinda’s efforts.)

***

**4\. Natasha Romanoff**

Natasha Romanoff knows two things. One, whatever project Nick Fury has his hands into these days, it’s no excuse for sending a woefully unprepared team like the one she’s currently heading on a mission to secure an enhanced subject. Two, this particular enhanced subject is not SHIELD’s ordinary brand of “gifted” – the glow in his eyes and under his skin is consistent with the effects of the Extremis virus, and Stark has told her enough about it that she’s starting to seriously doubt their possibilities to leave this place alive.

Of course, she has no doubt that they can make it if she just gives the order to retreat. But there’s a hostage situation, in a post office full of people, and that is not a call she’s going to make.

Oh, she _hates_ being the one who has to call the shots.

“Stay low,” she whispers into her comm. Out of the corner of her eye, she can see the agent stationed to her right nod. Specialist Agent Catarina Carvalho, Level 5, is both the second-highest ranking agent on this op and the only one Natasha actually trusts not to freak out, which is why she appointed her as her second-in-command. Still, she knows that Agent Carvalho has a teenage son (background checks on her own team, Phil taught her to do that sort of thing), and that makes her doubt whether she’ll follow through when she gives the kill order.

Yeah, did Natasha mention that the Extremis test subject they’re facing is a seventeen-year-old boy? _Brandon Coleman, born March 6, 1996. Got his acceptance letter from Boston University three weeks ago. Was probably excited about it. This isn’t going to help, Natasha._

She can see that he’s terrified, and his body is rejecting the virus already. Best case scenario, provided that Stark’s calculations are correct (and they always are, as much as Natasha regrets to admit that), they have about ten minutes before the boy explodes. Literally.

She taps her earpiece, switching to Carvalho’s private channel. “Catarina, I’m afraid I’m going to have to call it.” She lets just the right amount of concern and sorrow slip into her voice, and hopes it’s enough.

“Yes, ma’am,” Carvalho answers in a steady voice, never taking her eyes off the target.

Natasha taps on her comlink again. “Is everyone in position?” A chorus of hushed _yes, ma’am_ ’s follows.

“Good. Agent Stephens, do you have the shot?”

“I think so, yes.”

_I’m going to need more than “I think so”, Stephens_ , Natasha thinks. She’s about to say just that when she hears Agent Carvalho mutter something into her comm.

It sounds a lot like, “Come on, what would Phil Coulson do?”

A moment later, Agent Carvalho is walking out into the open, right in the middle of the post office, effectively cutting out Stephens’ line of sight while managing to divert Coleman’s attention away from the hostages.

_Damn it, Catarina, you’re no Captain America_ , Natasha grumbles silently. Then she moves on to more practical thoughts, like making the most of Carvalho’s distraction to speed up the civilians’ evacuation.

***

In the end, it turns out that either Stark’s calculations were off after all, or someone has been working on Extremis, making it even more powerful. Natasha knows which option she would prefer. Unfortunately, she also knows which one is more likely to be true.

The boy’s reaction to the virus went critical a good two or three minutes before it was supposed to. That means that Agent Carvalho, along with a half dozen civilians and another agent, was still in full range of the explosion. The tally is two dead, plus of course Brandon Coleman, and three seriously injured, one of which is Carvalho herself.

They keep her in an induced coma for a few days, but the doctors assure Natasha that she’s going to make it. She asks them to send her a message when she wakes up.

When Natasha comes down to Medical for her first (and, in all likelihood, last) visit, she finds Agent Carvalho awake and leafing through a comic book. She asks her how she feels (“All right. Bit sore”), if the food is okay (“Better than you’d think”), if her son has been cleared to come visit her (“Of course” – which is fortunate, because otherwise Natasha would have had to waste her time scaring the head physician into signing the forms, and she wasn’t looking forward to that) – the kind of meaningless small talk that belongs in hospitals.

“I’m not going to file an insubordination complaint,” Natasha tells Catarina as soon as she thinks they’ve exchanged enough pleasantries.

“I figured,” she smiles. “If you’d planned to do that, you’d have already done it.”

Natasha smiles back. “When you went against Coleman,” she says, “you said something about Agent Coulson.” It’s not usual for her questions to be so straightforward, but Agent Carvalho is in recovery, and she doesn’t feel like having to justify a proper interrogation to herself.

“Did I – oh, of course.” A wry quirk of her lips. “What would Phil Coulson do?”

Natasha’s face, of course, doesn’t shift one bit. “Is there a reference I’m supposed to get?”

“No, of course not. Sometimes I forget that you never went through basic training, ma’am.”

“I don’t believe anyone could ever forget that.” Natasha looks down, nonchalantly inspecting her fingernails, while she waits for Carvalho to continue.

“It’s a thing – an old saying from my Academy days. I think it’s still around, actually – I’ve heard it from rookies, sometimes. When faced with an impossible situation, ask yourself: what would Phil Coulson do?”

“That’s – an interesting concept.”

“I suppose so.” There’s a faraway look in Catarina Carvalho’s eyes. “Though I suppose that in this case, whatever Agent Coulson would have done would not have lead to three casualties and, well, everything else.”

“Believe it or not,” Natasha answers, already standing up from her chair, “I think what Agent Coulson would have done in this situation might not be so different from what you did.”

“Maybe,” Carvalho sighs. “Either way, please don’t tell him about this.”

“Don’t worry,” Natasha says, her stoic mask firmly in place. “I’ll try to keep it to myself.”

***

**5\. Sharon Carter**

_I think it’s time you know the truth_ , Steve Rogers’ voice says, echoing over the loudspeakers, and the world of every single agent of SHIELD, regardless of where they stand, is turned upside down.

Sharon Carter would like to be able to say that what happens next is a blur. In reality, what happens next is a long moment she will always remember with perfect clarity – watching Brock Rumlow stride across the control room, while the icy feeling in her gut tells her that it’s over, that no matter what Captain America says, this is SHIELD’s last day.

(As it turns out, that thought is both right and wrong at the same time, but she doesn’t find out about that until many months later.)

“Preempt the launch sequence,” Rumlow orders coolly. “Send those ships up now.” And that’s it, it really is over. Project Insight is operative. No one’s going to be able to stop those Helicarriers once they’re up in the air. Not even Steve Rogers.

Then, of course, the impossible happens. (Hours later, Sharon will ask herself how she could have turned so quickly from trusting the loyalty of every single agent in the room to believing that no one of them was going to rebel against Hydra’s orders. She doesn’t have an answer for that yet.)

“Sorry, sir,” the curly-haired man sitting before the screen says. “I’m not going to launch those ships.” A beat of silence. “Captain’s orders.”

And that’s when Sharon Carter understands that she was wrong, that nothing’s over yet, and that she will do her best to make it so that at the end of the day, SHIELD still stands.

“Like he said.” She marches up to Rumlow’s side, her gun making for a comfortable weight in her hand. “Captain’s orders.”

***

At the end of the day, of course, they don’t quite manage to save the agency, but they still win. It matters little that Sharon cannot tell who “they” are supposed to be any more. The good guys? Captain America’s allies? SHIELD, whatever that means now?

(A few days later, she will watch the Black Widow’s speech at Capitol Hill on national television, and she will think that maybe there’s an answer to that question as well. When the CIA offers her a position, she will find that that’s enough, at least for the time being.)

Before that, however, when everything is over, at the end of the day that will be remembered as the fall of SHIELD, she looks for the technician who went against Rumlow’s orders. His name is Cameron Klein, and, somewhat surprisingly, he isn’t dead. Which is good, since Sharon needs to ask him a question.

“Why did you do that?”

Klein flinches. Okay, that was maybe a bit abrupt as a conversation starter, given that the tech is currently huddled under a shock blanket, sipping what looks like tea from a plastic cup some paramedic gave him.

“D-do what?” he stutters.

Sharon makes an effort to relax her stance to make him more comfortable. “Go against Rumlow. Why? It wasn’t the smart thing to do.”

“I don’t know,” the tech shrugs. And maybe that’s it, that’s all she’s going to get – the only reason for the first act of bravery on the day that saw SHIELD fall is _I don’t know_.

Then, after a short pause, Klein adds, “I guess I did it for Agent Coulson.”

_Right, what?_ “You knew Agent Coulson?”

He shakes his head vigorously, giving a halfhearted huff of laughter. “Of course not. There’s no possible universe in which I’m cool enough to know Agent Coulson.”

“Then what does he have to do with this?”

“Dunno.” Klein shrugs again. “I guess I – I mean, I know he’s out there somewhere. He, and I don’t know how many other agents who will learn that SHIELD has fallen today and that there was Hydra and – I’m sorry, I don’t really get everything that’s happened, I’ve never been any good as a strategist. But I thought, what the hell, there are agents out there, good agents, and if Project Insight gets launched they’re going to get wiped out. Along with, uh, lots of other people, I guess. I probably should have thought of them as well. But, you know, I thought about Agent Coulson instead. And how he would have followed Captain America’s lead. I’m sorry.”

“What would Phil Coulson do,” Sharon says after a pause, still a bit stunned by the sudden overflow of words.

“Exactly. That. Though, well, what do I know,” Klein adds with a bitter smile, “people are going around, saying that Agent Sitwell was Hydra. Agent Coulson might be Hydra as well.”

And, well, ironic as it is, this might be the first thing for which Sharon Carter, aka Agent 13, Clearance Level 6, has a definite answer today. “No,” she smiles back at him, although her tone is bitter. “If there’s one thing I know, is that Agent Coulson is not Hydra.”

***

**\+ 1.**

The fact that the Black Widow has dumped all of SHIELD’s files on the internet for everyone to access doesn’t mean that they stay out there for long. Not all of them, at least. Some things disappear, others are discreetly moved to hidden corners where no one who doesn’t know how to look is likely to find them.

Those who do know how to look, of course, have already taken what they need by that point. While major media outlets all over the world go crazy for a few weeks about _#SHIELDinfodump_ and the man on the street spends his break talking about Natasha Romanoff, Steve Rogers and Alexander Pierce, there’s a much smaller number of people out there who are starting to put together the pieces on the things that SHIELD was really making an effort to keep under wraps. Many of them, perhaps unsurprisingly, are SHIELD’s own former agents.

There was nothing about the TAHITI protocol in the files Natasha released to the public. Phil Coulson, with a little help from Fury’s Toolbox, has made sure of that. There are, however, other things – forms, records, small bits of evidence, but more than enough for anyone who knows what they’re looking for to reconstruct at least part of the story.

All around the world, the agents who remained loyal to SHIELD are finding out that one of their symbols was actually reported dead after the Battle of New York, and then he came back to life. Those who already knew about the first part are discovering that they were lied to, _again_ , but maybe, for once, they don’t mind finding out that what they were told was not the whole truth.

When, over the next few months, some of those same former agents start getting contacted by an unassuming man in a suit and tie, it does not take long before one of them draws the obvious parallel.

“You know what I find amusing?” Isabelle Hartley asks, still holding a gun to the temple of the new Director of SHIELD.

She gets a wry smile in exchange for her efforts. “Do enlighten me, Agent.”

“That, in the end, SHIELD did just what Phil Coulson did,” she answers, lowering the gun. “We came back.”

**Author's Note:**

> By the way, [this is me on Tumblr](http://stepantrofimovic.tumblr.com/). Come say hi.


End file.
